A blog about homesteading and trying to live more simply. Trying to do more projects on my own in order to become more self-reliant. For the fun of it. Lots of pictures. By Julia Franke. Simplicity for Julia

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Friday, October 18, 2013

Day Old Chicks

Right now, we have 5 chickens that were born in the beginning of June. So they are just under 5 months old. we have three Easter Eggers, a Silver Laced Wyandotte and a Jersey Giant. The Jersey Giant is my favorite, so I named her Betty. The others remain nameless in case we have to eat them.

They are still not producing eggs, but when they do we probably will not be getting enough eggs. So we decided to beef up our stock. We received them two days ago. We ordered 2 Dominiques, 2 Jersey Giants, 2 Fayoumis and one White Sultan. The White Sultan is really good at nothing except for looking pretty. So that is our chicken that is strictly a pet.

The first thing we did was set up their brooder. This is the place they are going to live for the next 5 weeks or more, depending on weather. The brooder is an old wading pool I found in the garbage. The wading pool is especially good because is has no corners for them to get piled up in. We hung a heat lamp from the ceiling. My husband used to have many snakes (yuck - we still have one), this is one of his left over heat lamps. And a feeder and a waterer we bought from Tractor Supply. I had everything left over from the last time I set up the brooder.

I picked the girls up from the Post Office, and brought them straight home. Upon opening the box they came in, we saw one of our chicks has died. These things happen when you have living things, but it is never fun. We think it was one of the Dominiques.

I took them out of the box, one by one, dipped their beak in their water, and let them enjoy their new surroundings. At first they all huddled under the heat lamp to warm up from their cool flight.

Then they start to spread out, get something to eat and started to explore. The Dominque is eating while one of the Fayoumi's looks on from the right, and the Jersey Giant hangs out on her left.

We added some water to their food. At this point in their lives, remaining hydrated is very important. I'm going to have to clean the whole food dispenser out in a few days to prevent any mold growth.

The Fayoumi is a little camera shy. You can see that they have brown fluff with leopard spots.

My Dominique is quite the camera hog. Or maybe just curious. Whenever I put my camera down to take their picture she came running up front and center.

The White Sultan which I have yet to name, was camera shy. I picked her up so I could show her off. I read they were originally in gardens as an ornamental touch. So she is my walking flower. You can see the feathers on her feet already!

This morning, Jaxy came downstairs to hang out with the babies. He loves them! Also, you can see in the lower right corner, I added some grit, just some small gravel in the top of an old lid.